Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the fields of medical engineering and information technology, and in particular concerns the control of imaging procedures and systems, for example diagnostic magnetic resonance (MR) procedures and MR systems, or other installations.
Description of the Prior Art
The conventional controller 10 (shown in FIG. 1) of a diagnostic MR system or MR scanner includes a computer 100, such as a measurement and control computer (measurement and reconstruction computer) or a measurement and control system (MARS) and n distributed components 200i-200n, and is designated as a distributed controller. The components 200i-200n perform general communication tasks, control gradients of a gradient arrangement (gradient array), control a transmitter unit (TX unit) and process radio-frequency signals in the transmitter unit, or control a receiver unit (RX unit) and digitize radio-frequency (RF) reception signals in the receiver unit. The components 200i-200n can be arranged as close as possible to the respective, controlled system unit of the diagnostic MR system, for example in a control room, examination room or equipment room. Multiple components 2001-200n can be associated with one system unit or a component 2001-200n can be associated with multiple system units.
The computer 100 has n communication interfaces (ports) 1101-110n, a processor 120 and memory 130. Each of n components 2001-200n has a respective communication interface 2101-210n that is connected via a computer connection 3001-300n with one of the interfaces 1101-110n of the computer 100 to transfer instructions and result data. Each of the components 200i-200n also has two communication interfaces 2401-240n, 2501-250n that are respectively connected via a component connection 4001-2-400n−1 with a corresponding interface 2501-250n, 2401-240n of a component 2001-200n to transfer information, which component 2001-200n is (logically) arranged in parallel, such that the n components 2001-200n are connected with one another in the form of a ring (for example into a unidirectional or bidirectional MR control ring). Arbitrary components 2001-200n can thus directly exchange information among one another. For example, the components for gradient and RF transmission pulse control must exchange information in an extremely short and precisely reliable amount of time. The computer 100 generates instructions in an operating sequence provided thereto by processor 120 and a program for an MR measurement that is stored in the memory 130. These instructions are transferred to the various components 2001-200n, and process result data that have been generated by the components 2001-200n and transferred to the computer 100.
In the prior art it is necessary to connect the n components 2001-200n among one another in order to enable them to exchange information among one another. For the example of n components 2001-200n, the n components 2001-200n have 3n interfaces 2101-210n, 2401-240n, 2501-250n, and the computer 100 has n interfaces 1101-110n. Furthermore, the controller 10 for n components 2001-200n has n computer connections 3001-300n and n component connections 4001-2-400n−1. The controller 10 overall thus has 4n interfaces 1101-110n, 2101-210n, 2401-240n, 2501-250n and 2n connections 3001-300n, 4001-2-400n−1. In the transfer of information in the control ring, given n components 2001-200n one transmission (hop) from one component 2001-200n to a directly adjacent component 2001-200n is required in the best case, and in the worst case n/2 transmissions (given a bidirectional control ring) or n−1 transmissions (given a unidirectional control ring) are required from one component 2001-200n to a (logically) furthest remote component 2001-200n. Since each component 2001-200n can generate a data rate DR1, the maximum total data rate in the worst case amounts to DRmax=Sum(DRi), wherein each of the components 2001-200n—and in particular their communication interfaces 2401-240n, 2501-250n—must be able to handle the maximum total data rate DRmax.
The large number of communication interfaces, the large number of connections, a high latency and a high required transfer speed to handle the data rate in the control ring are disadvantages of such a known controller 10.